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Criterion October Releases (US - DVD R1 | BD RA)

Criterion announces Rosemary's Baby and more for this October...

Criterion has announced their releases for the month of October. Each film will be available on both DVD and Blu-ray, except for the Eclipse Series 36 which is only available on DVD.

In the Mood for Love

Quote: Release Date: 2 October 2012 SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: Hong Kong, 1962: Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk) move into neighboring apartments on the same day. Their encounters are formal and polite—until a discovery about their spouses sparks an intimate bond between them. At once delicately mannered and visually extravagant, Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love is a masterful evocation of romantic longing and fleeting moments. With its aching musical soundtrack and its exquisitely abstract cinematography by Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping-bin, this film has been a major stylistic influence on the past decade of cinema, as well as a milestone in Wong’s redoubtable career.

Disc Features -High-definition digital restoration, approved by cinematographer Mark Lee Ping-bin, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition -@ “In the Mood for Love,” director Wong Kar-wai’s documentary on the making of the film -Deleted scenes with director’s commentary - Hua yang de nian hua (2000), a short film by Wong -Archival interview with Wong and a “cinema lesson” given by the director at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival -Toronto International Film Festival press conference from 2000, with stars Maggie Cheung Man-yuk and Tony Leung Chiu-wai -Trailers and TV spots -The music of In the Mood for Love, presented in an interactive essay, on the DVD edition -Essay by film scholar Gina Marchetti illuminating the film’s unique setting on the DVD edition -Photo gallery on the DVD edition -Biographies of key cast and crew on the DVD edition -Two new interviews with critic Tony Rayns, one about the film and the other about the soundtrack, on the Blu-ray edition -A booklet featuring the Liu Yi-chang story that provided thematic inspiration for the film, an essay by film critic Li Cheuk-to, and a director’s statement (DVD edition); a booklet featuring an essay by novelist and film critic Steve Erickson and the Liu Yi-chang story that provided thematic inspiration for the film (Blu-ray edition)

Eclipse Series 36: Three Wicked Melodramas from Gainsborough Pictures

Quote: Release Date: 9 October 2012 SRP: $44.95

Synopsis: During the 1940s, realism reigned in British cinema—but not at Gainsborough Pictures. The studio, which had been around since the ’20s, found new success with a series of pleasurably preposterous costume melodramas. Audiences ate up these overheated films, which featured a stable of charismatic stars, including James Mason, Margaret Lockwood, Stewart Granger, and Phyllis Calvert. Though its films were immensely profitable in wartime and immediately after, Gainsborough did not outlive the decade. This set brings together a trio of Gainsborough’s most popular films—florid, visceral tales of secret identities, multiple personalities, and romantic betrayals.

The Forgiveness of Blood

Quote: Release Date: 16 October 2012 SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: American director Joshua Marston broke out in 2004 with his jolting, Oscar-nominated Maria Full of Grace, about a young Colombian woman working as a drug mule. In his remarkable follow-up, The Forgiveness of Blood, he turns his camera on another corner of the world: contemporary northern Albania, a place still troubled by the ancient custom of interfamilial blood feuds. From this reality, Marston sculpts a fictional narrative about a teenage brother and sister physically and emotionally trapped in a cycle of violence, a result of their father’s entanglement with a rival clan over a piece of land. The Forgiveness of Blood is a tense and perceptive depiction of a place where tradition and progress have an uneasy coexistence, as well as a dynamic coming-of-age drama.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Quote: Release Date: 23 October 2012 SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: John Schlesinger followed his Academy Award–winning Midnight Cowboy with this sophisticated and highly personal take on love and sex. Sunday Bloody Sunday depicts the romantic lives of two Londoners, a middle-aged doctor and a prickly thirtysomething divorcée—played by Oscar winners Peter Finch and Glenda Jackson—who are sleeping with the same handsome young artist. A revelation in its day, this may be the 1970s’ most intelligent, multitextured film about the complexities of romantic relationships; it is keenly acted and sensitively directed, from a penetrating screenplay by novelist and critic Penelope Gilliatt.

Disc Features -New high-definition digital restoration, supervised by director of photography Billy Williams, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition -New video interviews with actor Murray Head, Williams, and production designer Luciana Arrighi -Illustrated 1975 audio interview with director John Schlesinger -New interview with writer William J. Mann ( Edge of Midnight: The Life of John Schlesinger) about the making of Sunday Bloody Sunday -New interview with photographer Michael Childers, Schlesinger’s longtime partner -Trailer -A booklet featuring a new essay and screenwriter Penelope Gilliatt’s 1971 introduction to the film’s screenplay

Rosemary’s Baby

Quote: Release Date: 30 October 2012 SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: Terrifying and darkly comic, Rosemary’s Baby marked the Hollywood debut of Roman Polanski. This wildly entertaining nightmare, faithfully adapted from Ira Levin’s best seller, stars a revelatory Mia Farrow as a young mother-to-be who grows increasingly suspicious that her overfriendly elderly neighbors, played by Sidney Blackmer and an Oscar-winning Ruth Gordon, and self-involved husband (John Cassavetes) are hatching a satanic plot against her and her baby. In the decades of occult cinema Polanski’s ungodly masterpiece has spawned, it’s never been outdone for sheer psychological terror.

Disc Features -New high-definition digital restoration, approved by director Roman Polanski, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition -New interviews with Polanski, actor Mia Farrow, and producer Robert Evans - Komeda, Komeda, a feature-length documentary on the life and work of jazz musician and composer Krzysztof Komeda, who wrote the score for Rosemary’s Baby -1997 radio interview with author Ira Levin from Leonard Lopate’s WNYC program New York and Company on the 1967 novel, the sequel, and the film -A booklet featuring an essay by critic Ed Park and Levin’s afterword for the 2003 New American Library edition of his novel, in which he discusses its and the film’s origins

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#1, Rosemary's Baby is an A+ classic, but I would offer the following. When was the last time you have seen it on TV. It's never on, so unless someone has tipped you off to it, it's easy to miss. It's 40+ years old and honestly non of the cast has been relevant for some tome. Sure. Mia was married to Woody, but no one has cared for more than a decade. The director won an Academy Award about a decade ago, but would be sentenced for life if he ever stepped on US soil.

Despite the age, it's crazy good. Look at it like an R rated two hour episode of The Twilight Zone.